Sunday, 22 March 2009

It is mothering sunday today, and I allowed my son to creep into bed with me this morning. He then proceded to wake me by throwing up on his own head and then all over me. Happy Mother's Day!

As a sombre twist to Mother's Day, Jade Goody, she of Big Brother fame died this morning. Whether you love her or hate her, you have to shake your head in disbelief at the speed of it. And send hugs to her two little boys.

I have sent a couple of queries to magazines, and am chewing over a small business idea. To the future...

Wednesday, 18 March 2009

I was over at fwj yesterday, cradling my slack mouthed jaw in disbelief. Certain visitors to the website, when faced with a, in my mind, courteous post explaining a delay in posting leads complained at the unprofessionalism of having other things to do.

Whether they realise Deb has a full-time job, a family and other blogs to deal with I don't know, but I'm not sure it matters. If you are getting something for nothing, you are up on the deal- if you (temporarily) get nothing for nothing, you are not hard-done by! Rant over.

On another theme of wanting something for nothing, I like to enter fiction competitions, mostly flash or micro fiction, for which there is normally an entry fee. But how much is a reasonable fee? I have heard it said before that paying £10 to enter a competition where the prize is £50 does not make economic sense, but what about different levels of entry fee and prize? Part of me thinks that, by entering a competition, you should be happy that your work is great (I'm sure mine is) and that you stand a good chance of winning, and therefore any entry fee is worthwhile. But the problem with writing is that its appreciation is so subjective- I am aware that Catch 22 is considered a great work, but I just can't get into it. And Brave New World is better than 1984, just not so hyped.

Saturday, 14 March 2009

Hi, I have a pretty cool job I’m offering that's pretty easy to do. It’s a great chance to make a little extra money that you can do right from your computer when you run out of stuff to google. I'm looking for writers who can churn out about 500-1000 words per day (around a couple of times a week). The topic on which is being written is everything concerning property management, HOA management, real estate, home repair, Rent collecting, etc. We realize this isn't the most popular subject in the world, so we’d be more than happy to answer any and all of your questions if you have no clue what the heck “property management” is, or anything about real estate, etc. We're really looking for people who like to write or don't mind writing to make some money on the side, so you don't have to be a scholar by any means. If you're a decent writer with pretty good punctuation, you're ok. Please tell us how much you would charge. The quality of the written work has to be good, but not great if great means more expensive. We're looking forward to hearing from you, thank you. We'll be glad to contact you with any and all questions you may have. Thanks again!I suppose at least they are open and honest about what they want. So if there are any good but not great writers who don't mind writing about a boring subject you don't know anything about...

Thursday, 12 March 2009

I have been toying with the idea of setting up a site that lists job posting available to UK freelance writers and bloggers, just to save the disappointment of finding a really great gig or writing sitebut not being able to do it because you are not in US/Canada.

What do you think? If you stumble past here, let me know if you think it would be useful.

This point (specifically re textbroker) came up in some interesting (but highly charged!) discussions we were having in comment threads over at fwj the past couple of days. Check out the arguments and add your tuppence worth here or here.

Quotation of the Day

Who are you? What's the point? Why do we care?

Blogging. This is my second attempt at this blog as, previously, my lack of readers got me down. Surely a blog that no-one else reads is more of a diary?...

Anyhow, drawing inspiration from the inspirational Deb Ng over at freelance writing jobs, I thought I'd give it another go. Maybe no one will read it, maybe it doesn't matter.

About me, well I write a lot of short fiction, as I enjoy being able to finish a piece. I am also writing a novel (aren't we all), with just the 48,500 words to go.

Why do you care? I don't know if you do. But seeing as you are here, please enjoy reading my posts and PLEASE leave me a comment to let me know what you think. All feedback is helpful, good or bad, although good is probably preferred.